Above: The 2 year old replanted trees in one of the adjacent units that had been clearcut.

The Battle Creek Alliance is dedicated to protecting the public trust resources of water, air, soil and wildlife, protecting diversity and raising public awareness through education.

It just doesn't make any sense to continue clearcutting the watersheds of California during ongoing climate change and water problems. Yet, the timber industry and the regulatory agencies continue on this deadly path, with no questions asked about the damage to the natural world which supports all life.

It's 2018, not 1910. Look around. Are the exploitive robber baron methods of the 19th and 20th centuries of benefit to the majority of people or other species?

Our work focuses on the Battle Creek watershed, just west of Lassen Park in Shasta and Tehama Counties, although we also work on stopping clearcutting to protect watersheds throughout the state. Battle Creek watershed is oneexample of the many watersheds that are being irreversibly impacted.​

After

In August 2012, the Ponderosa Fire burned much of the industrial timberland and the homes that were on the edge of it.​The image below shows the fire boundary, the previously cut units, and the in-process and proposed units.

Water

Soil

Aerial view of Lassen clear cuts. Lassen Volcanic National Park is at the top of the photo where the clearcuts end.

The difference between a forest and a tree plantation:

Protect Watersheds & Forests as if your life depends on it.Because IT DOES

Surface and sub-surface water pressure on soils which have had the standing dead trees and root systems removed by "salvage" logging causes the slopes to slide. Basic hydrology 101: water flows downhill. Loose soil carried by storm water moves to the nearest stream.

The next satellite image shows the same area in 2017. Each brown hole is a clearcut of between 14 and 27 acres. Highway 44 on the north and Highway 36 on the south are the approximate boundaries of the Battle Creek watershed.

Animals historically found in California forests include: porcupines, bald eagles, wolverines and red fox. Due to the​many changes to habitat, these species and many others are struggling for survival.

Clearcutting and the use of heavy equipment and all of the activities associated with it, as well as herbicide use before and after logging to kill native vegetation, depletes and destroys the soil. Aside from the negative effects of compaction and erosion, roads are the largest cause of sediment deposits in streams. Sedimentation has a detrimental effect on water quality and aquatic wildlife.​

Clearcutting and the subsequent herbicide use have obvious impacts on endangered and​threatened species, but they affect all species, including our own.

This is a creek below the salvage logging, on the same day, and the same storm:

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Clearcutting Impacts Them All​

Many species of animals on the ground and in the air, including this Golden Eagle, need mature forests to live in.Estimates for the amount of Old Growth remaining: 1-3%Age when forests start exhibiting old growth characteristics: 200+ yearsSPI's length of rotations between timber harvests: 50 - 80 yearsPossibility of any plantations becoming old growth: 0%

A clearcut up close. Multiply this by hundredsor thousands when looking at the aerial images.

Battle Creek, forests, watersheds in the news:

Clearcutting is currently legal on private land, but while private rights are important, they can not be at the expenseof the majority of the people's needs, health and welfare. California state laws provide that the water, air, ​and wildlife need to be protected to benefit all the citizens of the state.

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Thousand Lakes Wilderness. Clearcutting and plantation conversion means that no trees will ever have enough time togrow this large. The old growth from the past is almost gone and the middle- aged growth that would become old growth​someday is being cut decades before it can achieve that.

Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) owns this land as well as nearly 2 million acres of the industrial timberland in the state. SPI has already cut, or has plans to cut, the majority of those acres. There are other companies clearcutting too.

By law, the cumulative impacts of interrelated, adjacent projects must be analyzed. Yet, by subdividing the watershed into 9 "subwatersheds" each of the 16 timber harvest plans has been evaluated as if it were the only project.

This is illegal as well as ecologically disastrous.

SPI's self-expressed plans are to return in 5 to 10 years to cut the biodiverse forests that remain between the clearcuts, and turn them into more monoculture tree plantations. This is being allowed to happen in watersheds throughout California.

Go to our "What you can do" page to contact Governor Jerry Brown and Secretary of Natural Resources John Laird about this destruction.​

Air

This report concluded:

"The average change in turbidity for a watershed that has been 30% cut is +200% and, for a watershed that has been 90% cut it is 3000%. These changes, which are far in excess of the Water Board's Turbidity Standard for the Central Valley region, are unlikely to have been caused by factors other than harvesting, fire, salvage logging, and associated road use.''

The aerial image below shows what the Battle Creek watershed west of Lassen Volcanic National Park looked like in the late '90s, before the excessive clearcutting that began in 1998.

Salvage logging post- fire. The damage from equipment to the soil on the slopes is readily apparent.

The image above shows nearly 20,000 acres of clearcuts from 16 different timber harvest plans in the Manton and Shingletown area, and additional clearcuts in the surrounding watersheds and the post-fire salvage logged area (brown boot-shaped area left of image center) .

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The following image shows a creek during a rainstorm above the salvage​logging in March, 2013 (as of 2017 these impacts continue):​

is to ensure that the true environmental impacts are being analyzed. With this analysis, permanent damage to the​resources that benefit all life can be averted. For the present, for the future.